Where does your school rank in Lehigh Valley Conference football history?

Besides giving me some amazing numbers about what his player Joe Williams did in one half of football last Friday against Pocono Mountain West (see today's column on the third page of the sports section) Emmaus athletic director Dennis Ramella sent along some numbers summing up Lehigh Valley Conference football history.

Remember, the LVC is just into its ninth year, having begun in the fall in 2002 after the schools came to their senses and reunited after four years of having Allen, Dieruff, Central, Becahi and Emmaus in the East Penn Conference and Parkland, Whitehall, Northampton, Liberty, Freedom, Easton and Nazareth in the Mountain Valley Conference.

Remember why those seven schools departed the EPC for the Mountain Valley?

It was all about the transferring of athletes and some of the biggest complainers back then are now among the biggest beneficiaries when it comes to transfers now.

I'll leave that rant for another time.

Suffice to say, LVC football can hold its own with league/sport pairing in the state.

With several teams still capable of making a push toward Hershey in the next five weeks, it has been a staggering start for this league. Five teams have already played for state titles -- Liberty three times, Parkland twice. Parkland won state gold in the LVC's first season, 2002, and Liberty took the top prize in 2008.

Liberty is naturally one of the premiere programs in the LVC, but when you look at this list think of how special this Nazareth team is because the Blue Eagles, at 9-2, nearly have half as many wins in this one season as they had in the previous eight seasons combined (23).

Here's the list through last week's games (remember this is since 2002):

Current Comments

Interesting. If asked to guess this I would have not been close

Posted By: Trojan Man | Nov 16, 2010 12:10:26 PM

Strange to think that Dennis would omit 3 Eastern Conference appearances by Emmaus . I find the numbers somewhat surprising myself . But I have said continually , and certainly on this blog , that we are very fortunate to have this caliber of High School sport's in this area . I for one enjoy it . ..... Thanks for the piece on Joe Williams this morning . He gave a truly amazing performance last Friday night . It did'nt recieve the notice it should have , but it was EC ( part and parcel .) His running and the effort overall by Emmaus was special . They certainly played team's that were worse this year than PM West , but it would be hard to think of a better game from the Hornet's . There will be 4 big games this Friday night involving 6 LVC teams . That speaks volumes !

Posted By: CHEK | Nov 16, 2010 1:06:47 PM

the Williams kid is very good. VERY good. had he not transferred, Emmaus was likely looking at a 3-4 win season. Ramella does deserve credit for every year scheduling an Allen/Dieruff equivalent for an Emmaus opener. that does significantly skew the overall numbers but good for him/them if he can continue to pull it off!

Posted By: Ryan | Nov 16, 2010 4:39:37 PM

How about posting the records of all of the teams including their time in the old East Penn Conference, dating from 1976.
What makes that interesting is that is the year that all of the schools, suburban schools included, started playing each other on a yearly basis.

Posted By: ChorkyQpops | Nov 16, 2010 6:11:27 PM

CHEK:

The Emmaus Eastern Conference appearances have been added. My bad.

Bob or Chorky:

Not a bad idea to include the East Penn Conference records and I will pursue when I get a chance, but I would not include the records of those four football seasons -- 98, 99, 00 and 01 -- when those schools left for the Mountain Valley Conference. Obviously, the 12 schools played very different competition in those years.

Posted By: Keith Groller | Nov 16, 2010 6:17:35 PM

Chorky and Keith -- Including the old EPC records will yield more games for some schools than others. I went to CCHS and we almost always played P-burg; the Stateliners were in the EPC until the early 1990s, posting some good records but not playing in District 11 or Eastern Conference tournaments. I don't recall us ever playing Nazareth or Northampton in football, though. I'm pretty sure Nazareth was in the Centennial League, not the EPC; I think Northampton was in the Colonial League until at least the mid-1980s (by which time I'd graduated). So would you include records for those teams during the years they weren't in the EPC or LVC?

Posted By: Dave in VA | Nov 16, 2010 8:02:51 PM

How about illustrating the number of D-1 scholarships awarded to the individual players and from their respective school since the LVC was established.

Posted By: roverfan | Nov 17, 2010 1:27:59 PM

Completely OFF topic, but a few weeks ago I encountered a 'DAWN' on this blog who tried to back up field hockey teams which had a VERY significant MALE player. I argued that the Allen field hockey program has overly benefitted by male players. Before you call me a 'male pig', I had a daughter that played on those teams.